TA Gaming Stats - Dec 30th 2013 to Jan 5th 2014

Happy New Year TA!!!! Yes, I know that we're already pretty much halfway through January, but I haven't seen you guys since before the holidays and these Stats cover the beginning of the year, so I'm feeling all celebratory. It also may have something to do with me spending the entire holiday season trapped in an ice cave and wrapped in the rapidly cooling innards of a TaunTaun because I thought it would be "festive" to go where the snow was and spend a few weeks on Hoth with my Ewok helpers, the Statisticles, only for them to all turn into frozen furry popsicles within two days and me to spend the rest of the time with only a grumpy one-armed Wampa for company until the next flight home finally came. And no, I was not in the mood for ice skating as my tag suggests. Anyway, I forgot my boots.

Back to business though. The Statisticles have been thawed out and, despite some minor frostbite related appendage loss, are working hard at putting together the Stats for the whole of 2013, which should be ready for next week. In the meantime, here's the tables for the final few days of 2013 and the first few days of 2014. The numbers will be fairly meh because, unlike me, most of you were off having a grand old time I'm sure. However, I'll also provide some tidbits from the weeks we missed.

Games Started39,473 TrueAchievements gamers started a total of 62,489 games between them (1,904 different games).

We got two new releases for the One over the break with Max: The Curse of Brotherhood (Xbox One) and Halo: Spartan Assault (Xbox One). Max pulled in only just over 750 starters in its release week, whereas Halo: SA fared a tad better the week before these stats with over 4,500. That week saw the rest of the top ten with between 800 and 2,000 starters, a significant bump on the previous week's 300 to 900 (I blame gifts and ample free time). This week sees the numbers settle down considerably, with all titles back under the 1,000 mark.

Halo: SA slips below Dead Rising 3 with over 900 starters in second, whereas poor Max is nowhere to be found. Seems he really was cursed. The game that was pulling in by far the biggest number before the break, Peggle 2, has sunk down the table below all the AAA retail fare, currently wallowing in ninth place with under 500 starters.

Although it is a relatively recent release compared to previous "Game with Gold" offerings, Microsoft decided to make sandbox title Sleeping Dogs its latest bi-weekly freebie. The game proves a popular choice, taking over 5,500 new starters in just 5 days, more than the rest of the table combined. The other titles reflect the biggest releases of 2013 with between 280 and 850 starters.

The only new release for the break, the hotly anticipated The Walking Dead: Season Two, took over 3,600 starters on its release week. It then dropped to 1,200, before settling into 750 this week in fourth.

Outdoing them all though, was The Wolf Among Us, which pulled in over 4,200 starters when it was made free as part of the sales. This week, it continues to pull in big numbers as people get round to playing it, grabbing over 1,700 in second. It slips back under the previous "Games with Gold" freebie, Shoot Many Robots, by only just over 30 starters.

A few of the other previous sale offerings continue to prove popular, with Brothers in third, Deadlight in sixth and Ducktales in seventh. This week we also add State of Decay and How to Survive to the mix in fifth and ninth. That gives us a 50/50 split between zombie and non-zombie titles on the table.

Released the previous week, the triple freebie threat of Microsoft Mahjong (WP), Microsoft Minesweeper (WP) and Microsoft Solitaire Collection (WP) grab between 700 and 1,100 starters in the top three spots, an increase on the release week numbers of 500 to 760. It's interesting to see that Mahjong is the most popular of the three when, for nostalgic reasons, I would've thought that Solitaire and Minesweeper would do better.

The two other new releases for the break period, Temple Run 2 (WP) and Rabbids Big Bang (WP) take fourth and fifth. Temple Run has a slip from two weeks at around 900 starters down to 350 this week, whereas Rabbids drops from 400 to 90.

Although poor Max and his cursed brotherhood have dropped off Games Started, its relatively easy completion (currently at 20% of players having finished it) secures it a place on Games Completed. 90 completions this week puts it in second, although that's a drop on the previous week's first place securing 200 completions.

Even though less than 2% of players have finished it, Halo: SA manages to grab seventh place because so many people are playing it, giving it 50 completions.

The easy completion of Wolf Among Us helps it to lead the way with almost 1,000 completions, down on the previous week's over 1,700. It's followed in second by Telltale cousin Walking Dead S2, which has seen steadily declining numbers from 3,300 to 1,300 to 760, closely mirroring the game's starter figures (naturally, seeing as over 95% of players have finished it)

Brothers also proved an easy completion that was helped by bolstered sales numbers, pulling in between 500 and 700 completions over the holiday weeks. Other recent easy sales titles Deadlight, Far Cry 3 Blood Dragon, Castle of Illusion and Plants vs Zombies also grab completion places in the bottom half of this week's table, with the previous weeks also featuring 3 on 3 NHL Arcade and Virtua Fighter 5 Final Showdown.

For a free title powered by micro-transactions, Temple Run 2 proves an easy completion with over 22% of players having currently finished it. It's secured first place in Games Completed over the last three weeks, growing from 60 to 330 then back down to 180 completions. Similarly, two of the free Microsoft titles, Mahjong and Minesweeper prove relatively doable in second and third, with Solitaire considerably less so (currently at only 0.1% of players having completed it i.e. 2).

Achievements Won79,568 TrueAchievements gamers won a total of 1,038,248 achievements online between them (50,467 different achievements).

How much of Sleeping Dogs involves sleeping and how much involves dogs? And out of those two groups of time, how much involves dogs that are sleeping? I'd be intrigued to know, considering how much I enjoy Sleeping Cats.

All ten slots are filled by the game, whereas the holiday weeks saw a broader mix, including AC IV, BF4 and CoD: Ghosts.

It's Mahjong tiles everywhere here, but be careful because there there's a mine near the bottom to be careful of. No, don't click there. No, the one next to it. I'm sure. That one's clear. Oh...sorry...there are two next to each other.

Over the whole break, Action-Adventure has held steadfast in first place on Genre, with trailing behind. In fact the gap between the two has grown week on week, from less than 2 million to almost 5 million now. The weeks haven't seen much else change, except for now the Microsoft WP titles have put Card & Board on the table in tenth.

Total TrueAchievements won by Genre

Action-Adventure10,515,512

Shooter5,662,908

Action4,226,276

Sports2,273,496

Role-Playing1,863,523

Racing1,861,270

Puzzle1,153,014

Platformer1,124,438

Adventure598,925

Card & Board453,693

Because you were so good last year, I'm going to give you a special table that, if any of you can claim to be part of, you should feel very proud. Or sad, because some of them take bloomin' ages.

The Most Popular Games With Completion Percentage Under 1%(as of 12/01/14)

Only 1,363 of Grand Theft Auto IV's 152,574 players have completed it, including the two DLC packs, which equates to 0.89%. The DLC packs themselves don't make a huge impact on the completion percentage as it is three achievements from the core game that are the real completion killers: Wanted, Top The Midnight Club and Auf Wiedersehen Petrovic. All three have ratios around the 7-8 mark.

https://www.trueachievements.com/Call-of-Duty-Black-Ops....htm currently carries a 1.00% completion percentage as 892 of its 89,110 players have finished it. One achievement, the 5.6 ratio carrying Giant Accomplishment, seems to be having the most impact. But at 3% of players having got it (2,844) and 1,924 have completed the core game, almost 1,000 players most be having difficulty with other achievements, even though all the other main game achievements have been completed by at least 7,000 (8%) players.

Sitting side by side in third and fourth place are two Guitar Hero titles, with both at around 0.5% of their players having completed it. 422 of Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock's 85,933 players have finished it (0.49%) and 376 of Guitar Hero: World Tour's 66,458 players have finished it (0.57%). A low completion percentage is a feature of the series, with all falling under 5% and most at around 1%. In both of these cases it's not just one achievement keeping the completions down, but a handful in each title.

0.72% of players have finished up popular free to play title Happy Wars, including all the DLC, which equates to 407 of 56,471 people. Unlike the other games on this list, DLC plays a large part in this low number as, discounting the add-ons, the number jumps up to 4,031 (7.14%).

Thanks to its notorious multiplayer, only 248 of Far Cry 2's 53.895 have completed it. Three achievements in particular sit at 1% or under, with Mercenary, Soldier of Misfortune and Warlord all carrying massive ratios of between 10 and 11.3.

In ninth, Ninja Gaiden II sits with only 340 of its 48,863 players having finished it (0.7%). This is mostly down to the game's "Mission Mode" and its Master Ninja of Missions achievement, which has only been unlocked by 427 players. Discounting the DLC though, the game only jumps up to 1.61% completion by 768 players, thanks to a selection of difficult achievements, including many for completing the game using only one specific weapon.

Finally, Mortal Kombat sits at 0.76% completion by 355 of its 47,011 players. Like Ninja Gaiden this is due to a collection of high ratio achievements (8 achievements attained by 5% or fewer players). However, the lowest of all is My Kung Fu Is Stronger for gaining mastery of all fighters. Only 449 have dedicated the hours needed to attain it, giving the achievement an impressive 10.23 ratio.

If you have managed to complete any one of these serious toughies then I and my Statisticles salute you. Or at least they would, if most of them hadn't lost their paws to frostbite.

Join us next week, when we'll also hopefully be furnishing you with a round up of the Stats for the whole of 2013.